Category: music

An elderly Australian opera lover leaves the Victorian State Opera $2 million. But in the four years since she died, $800,000 has been spent on lawyers’ fees in a dispute over the money.

“The fact that music is universal across cultures and has been part of human life for a very long time-archeologists have found musical instruments dating from 34,000 BC, and some believe that a 50,000-year-old hollowed-out bear bone from a Neanderthal campsite is an early flute-does suggest that it may indeed be an innate human tendency. And yet it’s unclear what purpose it serves.”

“The fact that music is universal across cultures and has been part of human life for a very long time-archeologists have found musical instruments dating from 34,000 BC, and some believe that a 50,000-year-old hollowed-out bear bone from a Neanderthal campsite is an early flute-does suggest that it may indeed be an innate human tendency. And yet it’s unclear what purpose it serves.”

“The Warner Music Group, Viacom and the Universal Music Group are the final bidders for the BMG Music Publishing unit, according to people briefed yesterday on the negotiations. … Bertelsmann, the German media company, is selling BMG Music Publishing to help finance a $5.8 billion buyback of a minority stake in the company. The music group’s roster includes contemporary artists like Maroon 5, Christina Aguilera and Nelly as well as catalogs of longtime musicians like B. B. King and Joan Jett, according to its Web site.”

MySpace is gtting into the music business, offering music from “three million unsigned bands”. “MySpace is the latest company to try to take on Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, but unlike many other start-up rivals, it already boasts 106 million users, as well as the backing of parent company News Corp.”

” ‘We are not professionals. We share our problems with our audience,’ said conductor Richard Neville-Towle, before a wobbly rendition of the Gavotte from Bach’s Fifth French Suite. It’s the kind of concert where a critic might be prevailed upon to make remarks during the concert, rather than saving them for the paper, where the principal bass could explain the role of her instrument and which could end, after a sing-along South Pacific, with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 complete with canon effects from the audience (bursting bags).”

“A skilled computer operator can now create a commercial soundtrack that the casual listener would accept as real – without the cost of hiring an orchestra, renting a studio and paying union scale for sessions. Good news for budget-conscious filmmakers. Bad news for musicians who rely on income from TV and film recording sessions.”

“The Philadelphia Orchestra’s sold-out program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 – which had been anticipated as one of the peaks of the BBC Proms season at Royal Albert Hall – was canceled hours before it was to start yesterday afternoon because of a minor fire in the hall’s canteen. Nobody was hurt, and the orchestra’s instruments are reported to be safe.”

“Five are opening in North America this fall, at a total cost of nearly $1 billion. They include the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, the new home of the Nashville Symphony, which opens next Saturday; the Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto, the new house of the Canadian Opera Company, which had special inaugural concerts in June and opens its first season with a Wagner “Ring” cycle later this month; and the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, which comprises both a house for opera and ballet and a concert hall and opens officially on Oct. 5.”

A new set of 170 CDs contains the complete music of Mozart. It costs about 70 cents per disk. “The complete recorded works of composers are nothing new, but this issue is rare for its low cost and popularity, at least in Europe. And there is something compelling about its compactness: your fingers can walk through Mozart’s entire output in a few minutes.”